The Metaphor Was Washed Away By The Mudslide. Apologies.

     On 12 March, 2020, most of us had no idea what the future was going to do to us.

    For over a year, I heard "I just want to get back to normal" shouted from the opposing bank, as the small creek swelled and became deadly rapids. I was on the other bank shouting "NO THANK YOU NORMAL WAS NOT WORKING" into the roaring water, heard only by those on my own bankside, who were also foolishly shouting into the deluge.

    Now I'm trying to explain why I am consumed by a malaise.

    Sure, it's now 5 August 2021. The vaccine has been available for eight months, yet we are staring down another school year with panicked administrators, angry teachers and confused students. Didn't I just leave this party? Does this mean the "new normal" is what we faced last fall: unrelenting uncertainty? So August 2020 was "the new normal"? 

    Normal: conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected.

    I propose we strike "normal" from every day use: the dictionary, thesaurus, Fox News, CNN, governors and school boards.  And if I hear "New Normal" one more time, I guess I'll scream some more into the white water, because there seems to be no way to stop anything, anymore. Any thing, any more? Are those four words or two? There is no stopping the torrents of water, so I just stay stuck on the bank and shout into it. I don't know why. It seems "normal"?

    Nobody can tell me what they mean by "back to normal" outside of going to work and school and not wearing masks. I posit that was not "normal", it is your experience, living your life, but was it "normal"? It was normal to work years at a job you could be replaced at with no one noticing, then retire and stay home, or travel. That was my parents "normal", it is not mine. Times changed, normal changed.

    My school normal was to attend school and do as I was asked, learn history the way the text books depicted it and believe that I could some day, work a job for forty years and then retire without anyone noticing, stay home or travel. I've already pointed out that the job thing is not reality for me, and I do not believe the history that I was taught, or the controlling set up of the traditional classrooms to prepare me for a life at a desk or on an assembly line, should be called "normal". They were  the way things were in the 1970's, which were different than the way things were in the 1950's, which were different from the way things were at the turn of the century, and so on, and so on. Normal changes, people, and you can't go back once it has just because you liked it that way. Times change.

    Normal shifts, it is not stationary. It was normal for chamber pots to be chucked out the window of your dwelling, adding sewage to the mud in the streets  200 years ago. It changed.

    The people I hear whining about wanting things to go back to normal seem to be unaware that medical costs were bankrupting citizens, medicines had become so expensive that people were forced into decisions that started with "Which will kill me first?" in order to choose which medication to purchase. The cost of living and housing prices have skyrocketed while pay rates stay stagnant, forcing college graduates to move back home, and others to rethink their career choices. Pets go unattended, not spayed or neutered and are abused and neglected. Children clog the foster care system. Schools are lectured for 'failing' because students do not attend classes. Parents working two jobs realize that one of their jobs is only paying for day care. And we all have eyeballs to see the homeless population growing.

    I believe "normal" simply means "I've become comfortable with that." So start staying that instead, because that's what you mean. Everything I just listed is what you've become comfortable with. Own it. Saying it's normal makes it sound like everything was OK.

    Everything was not OK.

    I have been unable to pull myself out of the depression that has run my life like a mudslide, moving slowly at first, receding, returning, first meandering around the tree trunk, then gathering strength and knocking it down simply because it is stronger and more relentless than the tree. It has been here so long that it cannot even be called depression any more, because I got bored with that, and usually depressions end. This is a never ending malaise. 

    Malaise:  general feeling of discomfort, illness, or uneasiness whose exact cause is difficult to identify. 

    Which brings me to my next point, which is that I have become comfortable with that malaise.

    I adjusted everything to keep standing. I never believed this was going to ever be "over", and there is no joy in validation. But because I've held on so long, I cannot seem to adjust, to pivot right or left to accommodate the unrelenting sludge. I just dug in and waited it out, not realizing the mud was not receding, and I was stuck. So while I was not knocked down by the deluge, I am also unable to move because of it.

    So I face the coming school year, knowing that nothing is going to be the same and everything is going to suck, but at least I see it coming this time, and I can manage to somehow stay steady. The malaise is what I've become used to, and now I can manage to face the future with my new friend, who  sits right next to me to make sure I don't relax or exhale, that I stay uncomfortable as I wait for the next mudslide.

    At least I still have a few people on my side of the river bank, none of us able to move, very much like Hamlet, trapped in thought and sadness, unable to act. A small grove of Elizabethan trees who occasionally look at one another and share a sloth meme and send thoughts of support we do not feel, but that we think will help. It keeps us standing. So far we've not been shoved into the rapids, so we have that going for us.

Children's Theatre Moments: Postcards

 

    It appears that I am done teaching and directing children's theatre. Covid had a bit to do with that, changing buildings had a bit to do with it as well. It was probably time.

    So for seven or eight years...was it five? But there were two shows a summer, one summer there were three plus classes...anyway, I directed a few high school shows over the summer, before being "busted down" to the children's shows. I did not take it as an insult, as frankly, directing the littles is much harder than older kids. At first I had no idea The Hell I was doing, I kept talking to them like I do to teenagers, which turns out to be the trick. They don't need to be talked down to, and part of why we liked each other was I told them to act their age and they'd laugh and run off giggling. They are a freaking joy. Parents do not judge because they're just happy their kid wasn't home for a few hours a day for two weeks over the summer. Then, they see their kid on stage following directions and doing things they were taught, which gives them hope for their future. I had no idea I would fall so hard for children's theatre. I worked for three different children's companies, but I was all in after the first experience. Every company has their own approach to the summer camps, but my favorite is the one where we put up a musical in two weeks. It's like EXTREME Theatre, everything has to move so fast and the kids do it, they step up! There are a few meltdowns the day after opening night, kids who just cannot go back for a day, but will return that night for the show. Parents would tell us there were meltdowns between rehearsal and the show, as well as after the show. It's fair, it's a lot. 

   During 101 Dalmatians, one particularly ornery girl would not follow direction regarding her ears. She hated them, and continually pulled on them, removed them, fidgeted with them, etc. On opening night, she ripped her ears from her head while delivering a line about what Cruella was going to do to them, and the audience lost it. It looked deliberate, and she was shocked by the reaction. After the show I told her that was using her powers for good instead of evil. She squinted her eyes at me in confusion, but her mom got me.

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    So many nuts during Wonka. The squirrels were all aged five to seven, and they were squirrels in every sense of the word. The prop master made Styrofoam nuts that were in constant need of repair, due to the fact that the squirrels were aged five to seven and their tiny hands could not hold onto the nuts. The costumer and I were stationed backstage with a glue gun and our rapier wit, poised to make broken nuts whole again and sling bad nut jokes over the children's heads. A few classics:

        "I don't care what he told you, there is not chocolate inside your nut. Do not eat it."

        "Please hold on to your precious nut with both hands, we can't have nuts just rolling around everywhere."

        "Stop giving your nut to him if he's just going to break it."

        "That is uncool, give her her nut back, you can't switch with her just because yours is broken. Keep your broken nut and fix it yourself."

        "Hold on, let me find your mom. How embarrassing for you to get nut caught in your teeth."

        "Go see Miss Melanie about getting a new nut, I think this one's been broken too many times. What'd you do, stomp on it?"

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    For two years there were brothers who would enroll together. The older one was two years his sibling's senior, and we found out that the younger was actually only four when he enrolled, which is against policy, the absolute youngest should be five and in kindergarten. I was never sure if it was a communication issue or if the parents just needed the boys the hell out of the house for a few hours so they fibbed a bit on his age. He was clearly not mature enough to handle a few hours of theatre camp every day. The first clue was that at the end of every day, he would turn in his libretto and say clearly "I am not coming back, thank you."  He was very polite and proper about the whole thing.

    He wound up being one of my favorite kids. By the second year he had received a lead role and handled himself beautifully, but he was a piston previously. During Dalmatians he crawled away from the stage and into the house. He suddenly emerged from under the seat next to me, scaring me to death, where he then took my phone from the chair. I said "Um, no? Excuse me?" to which he smiled "I'm ruining your life." He was four. Where had he heard that? 

    He would leave music class whenever he wanted, and wander over to the dance class or to acting class to see if they were doing something he'd prefer. He hated learning words to music and the music itself, but seemed to like dancing for at least ten minutes. All of the blocking  and choreography was adapted for the possibility that he would not show up, not make his entrance or wander off stage. 

    Speaking of which, there was a kid on Dinos Before Dark that we did that for. We tried everything, but he would not or could not follow direction and hear his cue line. Since he was a dino stomping on stage, we had to adjust everything for the possibility that he would break from his blocking and trip someone. It gave new meaning to the phrase "stay alert on stage". It reminded me of doing a show with a company I Will Not Name, and one of the lead actors would drink and/or snort coke before curtain. You had to stay alert, you never knew from which direction he might lunge.                  _________________________________________________

    We were on our lunch and recess break when I realized my phone was not sending messages. I must have grumbled or something, because the girl sitting next to me asked what was wrong.

    "My phone's broken," I shrugged.

    "Buy a new one."

    "They're expensive."

    "Get a lemonade stand."

   She and I had several conversations that went like that. I hope she's class president now.

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    One of the pirate shows there was a kid dressed as a lobster. It was hilarious, and I don't recall a lobster character, just that we had the costume and it needed to be on stage. That happens. He expressed concern on the day we received costumes that he had been blocked to row the pirate dingy. I said "Nobody's going to mind that a lobster is rowing the dinghy, it's fine." I think this a philosophy I should take to heart more often. 

    The same lobster kid melted down at rehearsal. It happened, we were used to it. For the most part everyone just steps over whomever has melted and continues until they decide to rejoin the show or sit in the house. The lobster was very committed and would not move from center stage, where he was lying face down. I looked at the choreographer and said "Boil him." He got up.

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    "Do we get costumes or do we earn them?"

    "EARN THEM!"

     "How do we do that?"

    "WE DON'T MAKE MISS KRYSSI CRY."

    That is not the answer, but it was cute as hell.

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        "What is that big word that means 'chew your words'?"

        "PRONUNCIATION!!!"

        "It's ENunciation,with an 'E', remember?"

        One six year old "What's the difference?"
       ... Blink...blink. "You're six, just chew your words OK?"

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          I haven't directed anyone live in over a year. Like so many people, I was booked in March of 2020, directing two shows and hoping to pick up the summer children's gigs again. Alas and alack, the world had other ideas. I've made noise about starting a children's theatre or a community theatre, or writing a book or getting llamas but that all requires more money than I have, or the ability to invest money which I do not have. And so ends the brief reflections on those years directing the lil punkins. 

         Maybe I'll look into that lemonade stand.